Forgive me. I’ve sworn not to be unkind more than once a year to the “English” used in the game of Scrabble. But recently I came upon a Scrabblehead’s list of single-syllable words that usefully include a double a. On this eve of April Fool’s Day, it is too surreal a joke not to be passed on.

Here it is: aa, aah, aal, baa, baal, baas, caa, faa, faan, haaf, haar, jaap, kaal, maa, maar, naam, naan, paal, taal, waac. Surprisingly, no kraal, no yaar either.

Well indeed. Most of these 20 words, supposedly, can add a plural — s, and four were said to be verbs. Those included the two lonely words that I’d accept as English, baa and aah. So if you want to go oohing and aahing — making those sounds of surprise — at the noise of sheep baaing, I won’t protest.

As for the others, I’ve actually heard haar, from pretentious BBC weather-forecasters; it is used in eastern Scotland for a coastal fog. Waac I know as a World War II Americanism, a member of the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps; there was a British version in WWI. And maybe naan by now has a claim.

These apart, the list’s author graciously revealed that aa is a type of lava (as it is — in Hawaii), haaf to Shetland Islanders a fishing-ground, and kaas a Dutch wardrobe. Alas, foreign-born words don’t become English just by being used by volcanologists in the uttermost United States of America; or in remote Scottish islands (or even, for a kind of fishing-net, around one mainland-British estuary). A few French words for pieces of furniture qualify; but not the Dutch kaas — usually spelt kas anyway, kaas normally being the Dutch for cheese.

Of the remaining words, whatever naan’s claims, naam just isn’t English. I’ve read baas (ie, boss) and taal (ie, language). But both — unless tabla-players want to double the a in tal — are pure Afrikaans. The rest I’ve never even met, in a long and tolerably literate life. I’ve no idea whence they spring or what they mean, and I wouldn’t waste my time or yours (with a nod to kaal) finding out. No normal English-speaker has ever used them, outside the Scrabble asylum, where the lunatics and their “official” word-list are in charge.

Whatever the fun of surrealism, there is a serious issue here. Bar the artificial ones, all languages include archaisms. All have dialects, mostly with a modest vocabulary of their own. All are mongrels, having incorporated some foreign words and ready to tolerate the use of some others, often technical terms, which may in time be taken in.

But let’s not pretend that all the words, let alone spellings, of the past persist for ever, or that obscure bits of dialect are more than just that. Nor, whatever grand dictionaries may include, does a foreign word join a language just by turning up therewith. Some words from India are found in British English, and far more in Indian English. Many English ones turn up in Indian languages and others. But these alien arrivals remain foreign until the undefinable day when they can be seen as truly naturalized.

As for Scrabble, it’s fun played in real English, and if some people prefer to play it in Anglo-Martian, and enjoy the resultant fancifulnesses, fictionalities and nonexistences (yes, those barmy words all figure in the Scrabble word-list), no one can stop them. Alas.